Childhood

Setting forth from some of Foucault's theoretical and methodological premises, this paper aims at problematizing the contemporary discursive automatisms imposed on childhood, which endow it with an aura of bliss and consecrate it with the role of sowing all things, while, at the same time, they apply to it the taint of incontinence, corruption and subservience, thus attempting against its errancy, originality and therefore its generativity. The procedure adopted is an unlikely interweaving of multiple vocalizations about childhood. In a Barthesian (...) style, we chose an ensemble of discontinuous fragments of classical theoretical texts, journalistic accounts and literary works; all interspersed either by slogans fond to what is commonly called the industrial culture or by striking passages of popular songs. Together, such fragments finally compose a brief and unusual compendium of things actually said not only on childhood, but also for it, if not on its behalf. The strategy of textual composition carried out is that of the bricolage of such shared, ordinary childhood statements, aiming at shuffling the authorial sources. In other words, what interests us is a sort of distorted, hyperbolic, even monstrous repetition of certain discursive fulgurations about the world and the life of children, beyond or beneath the borders of their original enunciative territory. Moreover, it’s about rubbing such statements and, perhaps, making them short-circuit and, ultimately, raving them, in order to reverberate not only the movement of repetition present in them, but also their fissures, their blind or shaky spots; exhaustion spots; turning points, perhaps. We should also clarify that we do not intend either to describe, or to interpret the discursive contents that mark the childhood drumbeat routine; we only intend to bring out, once again, the circular and reiterative ingenuity which animates them. In doing so, we shall stoke their operating nerves and ridges, temporarily displacing the statements of their totalizing pretensions. Subjected to a forceful displacement of their enunciative jurisdiction, when caught in their arbitrariness, boastfulness and, ultimately, in their vulnerability, these statements perhaps start acting like circus mirrors which don’t reflect, don’t represent, don’t aim at being the herald of truth, but rather caricature the image of whomever stands in front of them in search of a revelation. This procedure is justified not by the resort to an allegedly unorthodox, fancy or clandestine method in relation to the protocols of "good manners" in expression, but by the invocation of an intemperate, eager manner of critical addressing to the robust and even crackly performativity of the type of experience handed down to childhood – taken this performativity not only as an automatic effect of a relentless dispositif, but precisely as a "focus of experience", according to Foucault’s concept of this term. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty not only published in the fields of phenomenology, aesthetics, politics, and linguistics, but he also lectured as professor of child psychology, which resulted in several texts specifically devoted to the child. Most notably are the works “The Child’s Relations to Others,” Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language, and Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures, 1949–1952. And yet the question of the child occurs throughout his entire corpus. Thus, it is quite difficult to limit Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of childhood (...) to one given text or theme. Merleau-Ponty is adamant, however, that his work in psychology and philosophy should not be viewed as separate projects. Rather, he repeatedly stresses an intertwining of philosophy and psychology, self and other, theory and praxis, and the lasting influence of childhood on adult life. In this vein, the following texts, both from his “philosophical” and “psychological” works, provide a sense of the significance the child plays in Merleau-Ponty’s overarching project, particularly in his account of intersubjectivity and the parent-child relation. (shrink)

Like most philosophers, Heidegger gave little attention to childhood, but his philosophical emphasis on pre-reflective practice and understanding seems uniquely qualified to help make sense of a child’s experience and development. Moreover, it seems to me that many central Heideggerian concepts are best defended, exemplified, and articulated by bringing child development into the discussion. A Heideggerain emphasis on pre-theoretical world-involvement opens up a rich array of phenomena for studying child development, which can improve upon standard theories that have over-emphasized exclusive (...) conditions or criteria. I begin by laying out some basic features of Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world as a preparation for understanding the world of the child. Then I will briefly discuss some of Heidegger’s remarks on childhood, followed by some reflections on language acquisition and the correlation of anxiety and meaning. (shrink)

The family presents an interesting challenge to many conceptions of collective activity and the makeup of social groups. Social philosophers define social groups as being comprised of individuals who knowingly consent to their group membership or voluntarily act to continue their group membership. This notion of voluntarism that is built into the concept of a social group rests upon a narrow conception of agency that is difficult to extend beyond able-minded autonomous adults. Families, however, are often comprised of members who (...) supposedly lack this developed sense of agency and are therefore considered incapable of consenting to join or remain in a group: infants and small children. So, the family seems to be an odd fit for the designation of social group, even though it is often heralded as a paradigm example of one. In this paper I argue that children and infants are in fact agents who are capable of collective intentionality, especially in the context of the family where they act cooperatively and reciprocally with their caretakers. In doing so, I present an understanding of the family as a social group that has degrees of voluntarism for all members in the forms of joint readiness and joint commitment. I argue for this in three steps. First, I employ Margaret Gilbert’s concepts of joint commitment and joint readiness as a framework for collective intentionality. Second, echoing Carol Gould, I argue that we ought to expand our understanding of agency beyond the ideal case. Third, I draw upon recent research from Michael Tomasello that demonstrate a child’s ability to act cooperatively and reciprocally. Together these steps provide a strong foundation for the claim that children and infants are agents capable of collective intentionality within families. (shrink)

The binary between the figure of the child and the fully human being is invoked with regularity in analyses of race, yet its centrality to the conception of race has never been fully explored. For most commentators, the figure of the child operates as a metaphoric or rhetorical trope, a non-essential strategic tool in the perpetuation of White supremacy. As I show in the following, the child/human binary does not present a contingent or merely rhetorical construction but, rather, a central (...) feature of racialization. Where Black peoples are situated as objects of violence it is often precisely because Blackness has been identified with childhood and childhood is historically identified as the archetypal site of naturalized violence and servitude. I proceed by offering a historical account of how Black peoples came to inherit the subordination and dehumanization of European childhood and how White youth were subsequently spared through their partial categorization as adults. (shrink)